(Photo by Selma Komisky)

Reconnecting With God Through Love

By Cherise Stewart

Life is busy, and with every new season, it continues to get busier. Often, this busyness also takes up our connection time with God. We may attend church on a Sunday, but do you really know Him? If you are not sure, it might be time to take some space to “catch up” with Him. 

When I was young, I adored my older friend Crystal. She was the most amazing person I knew at the time and I wanted to be just like her. Crystal often walked on her tippy toes, so I also immolated this behavior and walked on mine too…for years! 

The point of the story is when we love someone, we want to be just like them. We strive to look like, talk like, and even walk like them. 

If you were to have this kind of love for God, what would change in your life? Do you know Him enough to understand what He loves? The best way to know God is to pray and study His word. His word is the only thing that will transform our lives and help us understand how to look, talk, and even walk like Him.

An easy way to reconnect with God’s heart is to love what God loves. The Bible gives us insights into what God loves, we are going to focus on three of them.

He loves the world and the people in the world. (John 3:16, John 16:27, 1 John 4:10-11)

God loves the world, Christians, and non-Christians. He loved us all so much that He became the perfect sacrifice for our salvation and forgiveness of sins. 

One of the most quoted scriptures is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). This was God’s second command, His first being to LOVE HIM above all other gods. 

I believe we all “think” we are loving others just fine but is this love showing up every day? Are you loving people in traffic? Do you know your neighbors? Are you kind and gracious when you are frustrated with customer service?

We are human and yes, we are not going to be showing God’s love all the time, but think about how His love can radiate through your life a little bit more than it is already. 

He loves justice (Psalms 11:7 & Psalms 37:28)  

Justice is doing what is morally right based on God’s standards. Justice is often thought about in legal terms, but our challenge is to apply this principle to us personally.

In Isaiah 1:17 it says that we need to “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and please the widow’s cause”

We need to think about how we can show up in this world as defenders for those who are not able to defend themselves. This can be in small ways, like not ignoring if someone is not being treated well in public, or in big ways, like trying to change unhealthy systems in our country that our oppressing others. 

Justice includes accountability. We need to be willing to be accountable for our behaviors that may not be just, but also not turn a blind eye when we see injustice in our everyday lives at work, school, or even in the grocery store. 

He loves those who pursue godliness (Proverbs 15:9)

Godliness sounds like an unreachable goal for many of us. Pursuing godliness is living your life with respect and obedience to God’s word. This means trusting Him, resisting temptation, forgiving others, and forgiving ourselves. 

Godliness is admitting that we cannot do life without God by our side and striving to reflect His attributes the best we can in our lives. We do not have to be perfect to reflect His goodness. However, we do have to be aware and strive to grow in a deeper relationship with Him. 

When we allow ourselves to dive deeper into His word, we will find that it is easy to love what He loves. His laws are laws of love meant to bless and not persecute us. The challenge is to take one of these three principles and strive to be more mindful of how these can be applied to your life so that you can look, talk and walk a little bit more like him.